Give Greg Anderson $7 million and he'll win a couple of (maybe three)NHRA Pro Stock championships. Send that same $7 million to Jack Roush,and you're somewhere near halfway to being able to paint Greg Biffle'sNextel Cup Ford Fusion any way you like. Chip Foose would probably beable to squeeze a few AMBR winners out of $7 million. What NBC Universalgot for the $7 million they entrusted to Dennis McCarthy was more than200 cars for use during filming The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

2/15Dennis McCarthy dresses more like a car guy than a Hollywood guy. Hetalks like one too.

McCarthy's job was to make sure this reported $50 million production hadenough cars that looked right, that those cars ran right, and to fix thecars the stunt guys busted so they could go back and bust them up again.There were cars that would be wrecked, cars that didn't have to doanything but look good parked, parts of cars mounted on truck chassis socameras could be crammed into the actors' faces as they pretended todrive, cars that had to drift with precision for take after take, andcars that only existed to be blown up. However, none of the cars in thefilm was stock--every single one had to be modified and tweaked in someway or another. Think of it as an exercise in prolonged and sustainedhot rodding. Yes, some of the cars were real hot rods--American carswith American engines.

Let's get the film's basics out of the way. As the keener among you willhave already figured out, this is the third The Fast and the Furiousfilm following in the tire tracks of 2001's original and the 2003sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious. And as the name of this new film implies, muchof the story takes place in Tokyo, and much of the action involves thecurrent craze of drifting. But none of the actors from the first twofilms and none the characters they played are back for this sequel. Thenew movie's story doesn't reference the first two movies, either.

3/15The movie's main character has to install a Nissan Skyline GT-R engineto transform his dad's Mustang into a drift machine overnight. But whenthe real drifting needed to be done, the Tokyo Drift stunt team reliedon 430 ci of Windsor V-8.

Instead, Universal is treating The Fast and the Furious as a brand nameit can apply to any youth-oriented car-culture movie it wants. It's sortof the same way Snapple makes different flavors of iced tea. There'speach, raspberry, and unsweetened--but it's all Snapple. Since the firstmovie made $207 million at the U.S. box office, the second one broughtin $236 million, and they both sold huge numbers of DVDs, Universalwould like to make as many of these relatively cheap and enormouslyprofitable movies as it can.

4/15The Mustang's intrusive shock towersmeant switching from the stock twin-turbo setup to a single turbo.

In this one, the story goes that young American guy Shaun Boswell(played by Lucas Black) gets in trouble street racing in the UnitedStates and is forced to choose between jail or going to live with hisfather, a U.S. Navy lifer stationed in Japan. Once in Japan, Boswellfalls in with the drifting subculture, encounters the yakuza (ofcourse), ogles a lot of pretty girls in really short schoolgirl skirts,and ultimately has to prove himself in competition with D.K.--the DriftKing. Naturally he gets plenty of chances to drive, drift, and wreck alot of cars along the way.

5/15What's the best thing about a movie car? Someone else is paying for thetires. Toyo Tires was a big supporter of the movie, providing anestimated 4,000 tires.

Tokyo Drift's director, Justin Lin (he also directed Annapolis, whichopened in January), is determined that his film will be distinct fromits quick-cut, MTV-on-meth predecessors. "The other ones were purepopcorn entertainment," he said. "And I think the people liked that. Butfor me, I always feel like to do this right you sometimes have to let ashot stay a little longer. So you can actually feel the car. You canhear the engine. The sound. So there is a sense of realism.... Whatinterested me is that it's kind of like a western. You know, like aSergio Leone western of the stranger coming into town, except now thetown is Tokyo, and Tokyo's very postmodern, and so I thought it would befun to explore on that level." Of course, Sergio Leone had ClintEastwood around to play his stranger.

6/15The original plan was to use actual 632ci crate big-blocks from BillMitchell's World Products in the Monte Carlos, but the valve covers lie,and more tractable 540- and 572-cube engines were installed in the twobig-block movie cars. Most everything else in the Monte Carlo is racespec, from the Wilwood master cylinders to the lack of inner fenders. Ifthese cars were any simpler or more straightforward, they'd lack movingparts.

Tokyo may well be postmodern, but it's also one of the world's busiestand most crowded cities. "Originally it [the movie] was to be about 90percent filmed in Japan and 10 percent here," McCarthy explained. "Thenit was going to be half and half. And the ratio just kept changingbecause things weren't available there. They'd find a great road there,but even in the boonies the government wouldn't give us permission. Somost of the filming of the car stuff we got done in Japan was doneillegally. You know, they'll just go out in the middle of the night,have a camera truck and a car, and do their deal and hope they don't getarrested. That's how those car scenes were filmed in Japan." So sinceJapan wouldn't shut down to accommodate the film crew, the film crewdecided to create Japan in California. Downtown Los Angeles, thanks tosome new signs and fresh neon, does a remarkable job of doubling forTokyo--at least to eyes that have never actually been to Tokyo.

Since the majority of the filming was done in Southern California,McCarthy built and maintained the cars from a 35,000-square-footwarehouse in Glendale, California, leased specifically for the task. "Wetried to do everything in-house," McCarthy said. "We have a full metalshop. We have mills. We have mig welders. And we have our own spraybooth. We did a lot of the paints. If something happens and we have tofix some of them overnight, we have two painters at our warehouse."

Movies are worldwide products, and there are a lot of people around theglobe who want to see Nissans, Toyotas, Mazdas, and Hondas painted inneon colors with neon undercarriage lighting going fast sideways. But inthe U.S., the heart of automotive lust is with musclecars, and there wasno way the filmmakers were going to ignore that reality.

7/15This photo of Junior Johnson's Coke-sponsored Monte Carlos of theearly-'70s helped push the decision to build Monte Carlos for the movie.The primer and bare-metal appearance came about when the directorstopped by the shop as they were halfway through prepping a car for atrial paint job. "That's perfect," he said. So that's how the movie carswere done. The red and gold on Junior's cars look better though--paintyours that way.

So while the majority of iron in Tokyo Drift is Asian (and most of itrighthand drive--bought in Japan off used-car lots by McCarthy andshipped to the U.S.), a '71 Monte Carlo with a ragged NASCAR edge and a'67 Mustang fastback have thick roles in the film. It's the Monte Carlowith which Boswell finds the trouble that ships him across the Pacificat the film's beginning. And it's the Mustang with which he ultimatelydefends himself against the Drift King at the end. For Hot Rod readers,we'll assume pretty much everything in between is filler.

8/15Building so many cars so quickly meant constant work for McCarthy's crewand constant headaches when it came to making sure the cars that wereduplicates of each other looked identical. There's no such thing as anaccident on a movie set when it comes to the way things look.

There are a lot of know-it-half types when it comes to cars inHollywood: guys who say they're car guys but have never heard the wordMopar and don't know the difference between a leaf spring and a coilspring. And somehow they still manage to get jobs supplying cars andacting as technical consultants. In contrast, McCarthy had his own shoplong before he was recruited into the movie world and is a bench racerof the first order. At 39, he's the kind of guy it's tough to imagineraising his voice, and he seems to work as hard as anyone else in theshop.

During the five-month shoot, there were usually at least two filmingunits working; Lin's first unit was shooting the actors, whilesecond-unit director and stunt coordinator Terry Leonard was shootingthe action. Multiple examples of each car were needed just to supplyboth units. When stunt vehicles and specialty machines are thrown intothe mix, the volume of rolling stock grew huge. For instance, McCarthy'screw wound up building six versions of the '67 Mustang fastback, nineprimered Monte Carlos, and 11 Nissan 350Zs for the Drift King character.

"Some of the Mustangs were '68s we converted to look like '67s,"McCarthy said. "You know he challenges D.K. to this death race. So hetakes his father's '67 Mustang and then, overnight, they take the[Nissan] Skyline GT-R engine out of his [Nissan] Silvia and magicallyput it in the Mustang. You know it took us about two months to do that,but it actually does run. It actually runs really good, but we neverquite perfected it. But that was our hero car. It looks great, and theinterior's perfect.

"For all the stunt work, initially I figured just some nice 302s, youknow, with headers. Typical stuff. But the first night, we went out anddrove the cars, and [professional drifter and primary stunt driver] RhysMillen was like, 'No, no. Not even close.' So okay, the next night weput a 347 stroker motor in it that made it like 350 or 370 hp, broughtthat out to him, and he still wasn't satisfied. So for the next night weput a 430-inch Windsor motor in with a 9-inch rearend and a spool. Thatone he was happy with. That motor made closer to 500 hp, so we built aduplicate of that. So we had two of these 500hp Mustangs, and theydefinitely used every bit of power."

McCarthy's favorite cars were the Monte Carlos. "I started suggesting toJustin a couple of cars so they could start off," McCarthy recalled."You want like a musclecar, so, maybe a '66 Chevelle. It's kind ofsinister looking, kind of mean. But Justin thought that was too typical.So we ended up going to a '70 Monte Carlo. Kind of like, you know, aJunior Johnson NASCAR ride. It's really nice. I mean it's primer, but ithas black NASCAR wheels and Goodyear slicks. But then you lift the hoodand you realize everything's just top quality--a 572 big-block and aRichmond four-speed. Some of them have 12-bolt rearends and some have9-inchers. Full 'cages." Montes from '70 to '72 were used in the film,but all were decorated to appear as more or less like '71 models.

12/15Whenever there's a nice musclecar in a movie, you just know it's gonnaget bashed, and the Mustangs and Montes in this one were no exceptions.A scene in the movie has the Mustang rubbing fenders with a Nissan 350Z.We sure hope the Z came out of the melee looking worse.

Only two of the Monte Carlos had big-blocks in them--one a 509 and theother the 572--and both wore valve covers announcing them as 632s. Somecars destroyed during stunts either had small-blocks or no engines atall. One car was built so it could be spun on a rotisserie to simulate arollover with actor Lucas Black inside it.

13/15The setup here is that Tokyo Drift's hero gets nabbed street racing his Monte Carlo against a Viper, and that results in his expulsion from America. This version of the Monte was built specifically for the stunt, while the Viper wrecked in the film was a $27,000 insurance write-off that was patched up enough to be wrecked again. We don't know if the Monte landed on the Viper in this stunt, but that would be cool.

Even if your definition of a successful drifter is someone who can getout of town on a freight train without being arrested, the action we sawover two nights of Tokyo Drift filming was impressive.

Crashes are pretty straightforward to accomplish and often take moreguts than talent, but what Millen and other drifters like SamuelHubinette and Tanner Faust did in this film is real, amazing driving.Unless you have Millen's experience, you can't throw a twin-turbocharged350Z up a narrow circular ramp sideways with the rear bumper 3 or 4inches from the outer wall, and do it 20 times exactly the same way tocapture it from different camera angles. Chances are, no one will comeaway from this movie astounded by the sparkling wit of its dialogue orits nuanced and profound exploration of human relationships. But if thecars and driving are bitchin', that's good enough.

Filming ended in February 2006, and as this is written, the movie isbeing stitched together. A lot of things can happen in post-productionto ruin a movie: Edits could chop up one of Millen's continuous driftsso it doesn't look any more impressive than a Caprice hitting a patch ofice in Green Bay, they could add computer enhancements that rob theaction of all its sense of real peril, or they could make continuityerrors that have a Monte Carlo magically turning into a Chevelle fromone frame of film to another. In short, the movie may or may not suck.We just don't know. Cross your fingers and hope for the best.

We do know the work McCarthy and his crew did would have been impressiveeven if they'd never made a movie.

14/15

Track Test: Two Mustangs, Two Drivetrains

Hollywood is determined to destroy every '67 and '68 Mustang fastback itcan find. Back in 2000, about a dozen were destroyed filming Gone InSixty Seconds, and last year, another half dozen or so were wiped out asthe bad guy's car in The Dukes of Hazzard. So it was already pretty mucha cliche when Tokyo Drift's producers settled on the '67 Mustangfastback as one of the stars of their movie. What's surprising about theMustangs that survived the movie is that they ran so well.

Five of the six Mustangs built by Dennis McCarthy's Picture Cardepartment were found in Southern California using the usual sources:the Recycler and eBay. Prices ranged from $14,000 for a good driverdoomed for destruction to $22,000 for a clean car that could be used forhero work. We tested three of the survivors: one a nearly perfect carwith Nissan's legendary (at least in Importworld) RB26DETT turbocharged2.6L, DOHC, 24-valve inline-six and its accompanying five-speed manualtransmission aboard; one that didn't have a single dent-free body panelon it but had a strong 430-inch Windsor V-8 under its hooddeep-breathing through a Holley carburetor and using a Top Loaderfour-speed to send power back to the rear wheels; and one just like thedented car but with clean bodywork. All three cars incorporated GlobalWest suspension pieces and rack-and-pinion steering, and both wore245/35R19 front and 275/35R19 rear Toyo Proxes T1R tires on Volk RacingGrey GT-7 wheels. Ford sold plenty of Mustangs with straight-sixengines, but there's still something just so wrong about a fastback thatdoesn't sound like there's a V-8 throbbing under its hood. And there'ssomething weird about a '67 Mustang with a turbocharger intercoolerpoking out from under its front bumper and a single exhaust tip throughwhich a good-sized Shetland pony could walk. But Nissan's RB26DETTreally is an excellent six, and this car works surprisingly well.

McCarthy's team ditched the stock twin turbos for a single-turbo systemthey fabricated themselves but left most of the engine otherwise stock.In a Japanese-market Skyline GT-R, the RB26DETT is underrated at 280 hpat the crank. But on a Dynojet chassis dynamometer, this lightlymodified but overboosted example showed 340 hp at the rear wheels. Onthe test track, it plowed up to 60 mph in 5.38 seconds and cleared thequarter-mile in 13.36 seconds at 109.83 mph. And it did that withvirtually no drama while sounding like a '52 GMC pickup that just hadits rotted muffler fall off.

Built to look identical to the Nissan- powered Mustang, the beat,V-8-powered machine carried the same intercooler and exhaust tip as thatcar, but they're both purely ornamental. Instead, exhaling throughMagnaflow mufflers just forward of the rear axle, this thing sounds likethe hot rod it is: eager, powerful, and singing a sweet song. But whileit felt more powerful than the Nissan-powered car (McCarthy estimatesits output at about 375 hp), its power was much more difficult to get tothe ground. After all, this car was built to drift, not to launch, so itshouldn't be a surprise that a car with a rearend built to swing doesn'twant to hook up in a straight line. Still, its 6.65-second 0-to-60-mphtime isn't shameful, and the quarter-mile took 14.57 seconds at 96.65mph. The no-dent Mustang never made a complete pass down thequarter-mile due to a hemorrhaging fuel pump. However, on a partialpass, it did hit 60 mph in 5.96 seconds indicating some significantpotential.

Now that the world knows a Nissan six will fit into a Mustang, will wesee a whole rash of American musclecars powered by foreign engines? ForGod's sake, let's hope not.

15/15

Track Test: Monte Carlo Madness

In uncertain times, the savvy investor seeks expert advice. So listencarefully: If you want to make some money, go out and buy all thefirst-generation Chevrolet Monte Carlos you can lay your hands onbecause if there is one thing The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift isbound to do, it's raise the profile of this often-overlooked and easilymodified A-body derivative. Just look at what happened with Mustangfastbacks after Gone In Sixty Seconds six years ago.

The valve covers on both big-block Monte Carlos tested by HOT RODpromise that there's a Bill Mitchell Hardcore 632ci V-8 pounding awayunderneath them. And for purposes of the story in Tokyo Drift, that'swhat's there. But the cars are actually powered by smaller Mitchellcrate engines: a World Class 509 in one car and a Hardcore 572 in theother. Both cars back their powerplants with Lakewood bellhousings,Hayes clutches, and Richmond T-10 four-speed manual transmissionsfeeding through Wenco driveshafts to Moser 12-bolt rearends with spoolsand 4.88:1 gears.

Both cars also have similar chassis modifications with Global Westcontrol arms and coils in front, weight jackers at all four corners, KYBshocks, Speedway Engineering anti-sway bars, and quickened steeringboxes modified with the guts of IROC Camaro boxes. There are Wilwooddisc brakes at every corner, and the cars ride on Goodyear stock-carslicks (27x8 front and 27x10 rear) on Cragar 397 15-inch wheels.

While all that is straightforward stuff, the best parts of both cars arethe parts fabricated for them by Matt Sweeny of the Tokyo Drift shop.Both chassis are tied together with Sweeny-built custom rollcages, andthe interiors from both have had their stock panels replaced bySweeny-made aluminum panels. The stock instrumentation was knocked outin favor of Auto Meter gauges in custom panels, and the seats are Beardlow-back buckets.

Bill Mitchell rates the World Class 509 with Merlin aluminum heads at560 hp, and when it starts in the Monte, it seems like the FiberglassTrends cowl-induction hood is about to be sucked in. The sound isintense, with the exhaust pounding through Hooker headers and Flowmasterdual-chamber mufflers to produce the sort of cacophony you'd expectstanding directly behind an F-18 as it launches off a carrier deck. Andthis was the mild Monte Carlo.

With Dennis McCarthy himself grabbing the Grant steering wheel andmuscling the old-school Hurst Verti-Gate shifter, the 509ci Montesquatted on its slicks and rocketed to 60 mph in just 4.41 seconds. Itran down the quarter-mile in 11.97 seconds at 118.27 mph. Remember theseare stock-car slicks with relatively stiff sidewalls and carcasses builtto corner, not to launch. The car was wiggling its butt under theonslaught of the big-block's claimed 585 lb-ft of peak torque on everyshift. It was like watching Carmen Electra walk away from you whileaccelerating to 118.27 mph.

From a personal perspective, I've driven and seen a lot of movie carsover the last 10 years, and none of them came close to the performanceof the 509-powered Monte Carlo. It was raw, nasty, and brutal, but it'salso likely the quickest streetable car--in real life as opposed tocelluloid fiction--ever built for a movie. That might not be sayingmuch, but it's saying something.

After that performance, the anticipation about what the 572-poweredcar--with an engine Bill Mitchell rates at 725 hp--would do was intense.When the 572 fired to life in California, weather patterns all the wayto Alaska changed. It idled as if each cylinder were a Howitzer. And onthe first run McCarthy made, something let go in the drivetrain.